Tour Leader Bios
MAS tour leaders are architects, architectural historians, designers, geographers, urban and art historians, teachers and writers who are singularly qualified to interpret the cityscape.
JACK EICHENBAUM holds a Ph.D. in urban geography. He’s a lifelong observer of New York City and other large cities around the world. His expertise lies in historical urban geography, migration, ethnicity and technological change. Jack maintains a storehouse of urban concepts, researched facts and what he calls biased memories of bygone eras. His favorite teacher is the city itself.
JUSTIN FERATE is an urban, social and architectural historian, and the former Director of Adult Education at Cooper Union. Recently, the Governor of New York State and the New York State Tourism Council recognized him as New York’s “Most Engaging Tour Guide.” In 2003, Justin was selected to create the New York City Professional Tour Guide Licensing Examination by the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs.
PAT GUIDA is an urban historian, a teacher and author. She leads tours in all the boroughs and in Hoboken and Jersey City, New Jersey. She enjoys finding places off the beaten track.
FRANCIS MORRONE is an architectural historian and writer. His ten books include “The Architectural Guidebook to New York City,” “An Architectural Guidebook to Brooklyn,” and “The New York Public Library: The Architecture and Decoration of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.” He is the co-author, with Matt Postal, of the Municipal Art Society’s “Ten Architectural Walks in Manhattan.” Morrone wrote every week for six and a half years about art and architecture for the New York Sun. He teaches at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies (where he is the recipient of the university’s Excellence in Teaching Award) and in March 2011 was named by Travel + Leisure magazine as one of the 13 best tour guides in the world.
SYLVIA LAUDIEN MEO is an art historian who came to NYC from Germany via Paris. She teaches art history at Fairleigh Dickinson University and works as a gallery educator at the Guggenheim Museum, MoMA and the Jewish Museum with adult and student groups. She has also been focusing on exploring museum exhibitions as well as the City with visitors who have physical or mental disabilities. In her walking tours she likes to concentrate on the city’s art scene.
MATT POSTAL is an architectural historian, specializing in twentieth century architecture and urbanism. He has been a member of the research staff of the New York Landmarks Preservation Commission since 1998 and is an adjunct professor of architectural history at the New York School of Interior Design and Lewis and Clark College. He recently co-authored the Guide to New York City Landmarks.
TONY ROBINS is an historian who writes about, lectures on, and leads walking tours of, New York City’s history and architecture. During a long stint at New York’s Landmarks Commission, he served as Deputy Director of Research and then Director of Survey. He was also a founding member of the Art Deco Society of New York, whose walking tour program he created. Robins holds an M.A. degree in Art History from the Courtauld Institute in London.
Mary Ann Haick DiNapoli is a local historian with a special interest in the Arab American community of New York. She has lectured on this topic at New York Public Library and the Library of Congress and has written an article about it for A Community of Many Worlds: Arab Americans in New York City. Mary Ann is also a genealogist whose clients have included producers and biographers.
JOE SVEHLAK, native New Yorker, urban historian and preservationist, as a teenage messenger for the printing trades in the 1950s, walked the streets of a much different Lower Manhattan, thus sparking his interest in history. A founding member of the Sunset Park Restoration Committee and advocate for preservation in Brooklyn since the 1970s, Joe is also a preservation activist Downtown Manhattan with the “Friends of the Lower West Side”. He had careers on Wall Street and in real estate. For the last 15 years he is a licensed NYC tour guide with his own custom tour business with an affinity for lesser-known neighborhoods. Joe attended the Victorian Society Summer School Programs in London and in Newport, and is a member of many historical societies and preservation organizations.
Marty Shore is an lifetime New Yorker and urban historian. He was an educator and administrator in the New York City Public School System for 34 years. Marty’s extensive knowledge and wide-ranging interests are reflected in his one-of-a-kind walks of the City’s history, culture, architecture and ethnic neighborhoods. His particular interests lie in New York’s urban migration and ever changing neighborhoods.
